Special Agent's Surrender

“She died when I was seven.” And that was when all the love in Layla’s life had also disappeared. A wave of grief tried to pull her into its clutches, but she fought it, refusing to go there.

“And you don’t have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, it was just me. You’re lucky to have such a big family. It must be nice to have people who care about you,” she replied.

“It has its moments, but it can also be a pain.”

“Are you still with the FBI?”

The smile instantly disappeared, as if it had only been a figment of her imagination. “I’m retired.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You’re awfully young to be retired. What are your plans for the future?”

“To get some sleep before morning comes.” His voice was clipped, filled with a new irritation as he reclined his chair once again. Layla knew the moment of tenuous peace and conversation between them was over.

“Then I guess I’ll just say good night.” She got up from the sofa, turned off the lamp next to him and then went back into the bedroom.

The bedroom was small, the double bed covered with what appeared to be a handmade patchwork quilt. A dresser with a mirror stood against one wall and a nightstand was against the bed.

It was a nice room and there was a photo of the entire Grayson family hanging on the wall next to the dresser. She moved over to it and studied it.

Mr. and Mrs. Grayson stood together, looking happy and in love. They were dead now, killed in an airplane crash that had left their adult children alone.

The Grayson children all shared the trait of rich dark hair. Jacob stood with his arm around his sister, that charming devilish grin lifting his lips. All the Grayson men were drop-dead gorgeous, but they were also known as men who had humor in their eyes and a flirtatious smile on their faces.

Where was Brittany now? And where were the other women who had disappeared? There had been some speculation that one of the women had simply left town, but the others had seemingly vanished into thin air.

She moved away from the picture and turned off the bedroom light. Instead of getting into bed she moved to the window. It was a perfectly clear night, the moon a gigantic silver orb in the sky.

Her thoughts were momentarily consumed by the man in the next room. What had happened to Jacob Grayson? What had brought him to this cabin, living like a hermit with dark shadows bruising his eyes?

Something had happened to Jacob, something terrible, and she couldn’t help but be intrigued. She also couldn’t help but remember those brief moments when he’d held her in his arms. It had felt so safe and yet had held just a little bit of dangerous attraction.

And somebody out there in the darkness tried to killyou tonight. Once again the reality of what had happened slammed into her.

As she finally climbed back into bed, she prayed whoever it was wouldn’t find her again.

Brittany Grayson awoke suddenly, her heart beating frantically. She remained unmoving on the cot, eyes open to the utter darkness that claimed the shed or whatever structure they were held in.

How many days had it been? How many weeks or months? She’d lost track of the time that she’d been held captive. There were now four of them, four women held in jail-like cells. The last one had been brought in earlier in the week. Casey Teasdale had hung over her captor’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes as he’d carried her in and placed her on the cot in the fourth cell.

“Almost time,” he said to Brittany as he’d locked the door to assure Casey’s imprisonment. The ski mask he wore effectively hid all his features, making it impossible for Brittany to identify him.

He gestured toward the empty cell. “One more and then the real fun begins, and I’ve got a special woman in mind to fill that one. A pretty blonde who is a bit feisty and managed to escape me once. She won’t escape the next time.”

He’d whistled as he’d strolled out of the shed, leaving her with a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature of the building. One more and then the real fun begins.

One woman taken was a crime. Two had been a pattern and three made him a serial offender, but four was a collection. The monster who held them was collecting them like fancy figurines and she had a feeling once his collection was complete he’d take great pleasure in smashing his figurines.

She sat up, unsurprised to hear Jennifer’s sobs. Jennifer Hightower had been crying off and on since the moment she’d arrived.

Say something to comfort her, a small voice whispered inside Brittany’s head. But, as she reached inside herself for the right words she realized she had no more comfort to give.

For the first time since she’d been kidnapped she was without hope, her very soul had been depleted.

Initially she’d been so sure that her brothers would find her. She knew they’d move heaven and earth to find out what had happened to her. But with each day that had passed without rescue, her fear had grown stronger and now it was screaming like a banshee in her head.

Enough time had passed since her disappearance that her brothers probably thought she was already dead. Maybe they’d even stopped looking for her. She lay back down on the cot and squeezed her eyes closed. No, they wouldn’t stop looking, but she’d lost the hope that they might find her in time.

One more and then the real fun begins.

She knew in her gut that the real fun meant death to all the women that were in the cells.

Chapter 3

Dawn was just beginning to break when Jacob awakened. Instantly his head filled with a vision of Layla. When he’d burst into her room the night before in response to her screaming, he’d been ready to protect her with his life.

As he’d seen her in the bed, the sheet at her waist and the top of the sleek animal print nightgown barely covering her full breasts, a fist of desire had slammed into his gut. When she’d awakened and pulled him into an embrace, that fist had punched him over and over again as he’d held her in his arms.

He now got up from the recliner and threw a log and some kindling on the hot coals from the night before. Once the fire was blazing nicely, he decided a shower and a change in his thoughts were in order. Stepping into the bathroom he caught his reflection in the mirror above the sink.

You look like hell.

Layla was right. He did look like hell. He scraped a hand across his whiskered chin and then turned away from the mirror in disgust.

Half an hour later he left the bathroom clean-shaven and dressed in a freshly laundered navy turtleneck shirt and jeans. He made coffee, then carried a cup to the living room window and stared outside, his thoughts still on the woman who slept in the next room.

She was so full of life and seemed determined to bring him out of his isolation by talking him to death. She probably had dozens of men lined up waiting to spend time with her.

And somebody had tried to kill her.

He turned away from the window and wished he’d been paying more attention to what was going on in town. He knew his sister and somebody else had gone missing, but whenever his brothers had talked about it, he’d tuned it out, preferring his own drama to theirs. Now he wished he’d listened more carefully to them.

He glanced at the closed bedroom door and wondered how late she would sleep. Not that he cared. As long as she was sleeping she wasn’t talking.

She reminded him of Sarah and that was a time in his life he didn’t want to remember, a time when he’d had hopes and dreams and everything had seemed possible. When Sarah had walked away from him she’d stolen his dreams. The final case in his career had shattered his hope.

It was just before nine when Layla finally emerged. Clad in her nightgown and a short matching robe and her hair sleep-tousled around her head, she gave him a heavy-lidded glance and a quick smile. “Coffee, then shower,” she said as she disappeared into the kitchen.

His stomach muscles knotted with a tension he recognized. It surprised him that the first real emotion he’d felt for so long was lust. Her long slender legs had looked sleek and sexy beneath the short robe and he hadn’t forgotten how her full breasts had looked spilling over the top of her nightgown the night before.

He’d assumed she’d grab a cup of coffee and then join him in the living room, but as several minutes went by he realized she wasn’t coming out of the kitchen.

Leave her be, he told himself. After all, that’s what he wanted from her. He should be enjoying the fact that she was awake and not talking to him.

Before he realized what he was doing he was on his feet and headed into the kitchen. She sat at the table, her dainty fingers wrapped around a stone coffee mug and her eyelids still lazy with sleep.

“You’re obviously not a morning person,” he observed as he refilled his own coffee cup. He sat across from her at the table, wondering what in the hell he was doing.